Cozumel Diving!

Randy and I decided a trip to Cozumel was in order after our daughter’s wedding on October 3. The plan was to relax, and enjoy the Caribbean. The plan came to fruition.

The first week I went diving with Albatros Charters, a great company with three boats. They will do dive trips, snorkeling trips, and they also do fishing charters on their larger boat. Robert was the dive master for the week, and I very much enjoyed diving with him. My diving buddies were David and Kyle, a father and son. Kyle was doing his certification for his Open Water, the first dive certification. I asked him after a dive, “so do you just like diving, or is it fucking awesome?”.  “It is awesome,” he said. Another diver and ocean lover in the tribe. Yes!

Video has been my main focus this trip. I bought a GoPro Hero + with an LCD screen so I could see what I was filming. My old GoPro had no LCD screen and I missed my subject with it more often than not. Fortunately, I am starting to get steadier with the camera. I still took some stills, but mostly video. The video of the Hawksbill Turtle at the beginning of this post might clue you in as to why Kyle voted “awesome”! We had some pretty amazing dives.

Our first dive was Palancar Gardens, which is always beautiful with its mounds and hills of coral. Palancar is a very large reef, and one cannot dive it in just one dive. The gardens are named aptly, for the coral is especially colorful and plentiful. There is Palancar Horseshoe, Palancar Caves, Palancar Pinnacles, Palancar Gardens….all the same reef system.

Next, we went to Francesa, always a favorite dive site. The opening video of the flying Hawksbill was filmed on La Francesa, or French Point. Francesa is usually viewed while flying over the reef tops, as it is known as a fast current dive, however during my two weeks here, there was virtually no current, so I was able to really explore Francesa for the first time. It is one of my favorite dive sites.

There is always so much to see on a reef…coral, sponges, shrimps, crabs, fish, lobsters, big fish, little fish….you just never know what you are going to see! It keeps diving fresh and exciting every time! Just check out this video on YouTube of a lobster on the reef…I love watching them move…they have arms and legs and antennae and I don’t know what else…fascinating! (I know it’s a little shaky here and there…but hey, I’m just learning!)